“I think things would have been different years ago. Old people used to be treated differently.”

Their daughter Lynne Kotchie met with Hampshire County Council, social services and specialists to discuss her father’s care and was told he had been awarded a place at a care home.

But social services said the funding was not available for her mother.

Mrs Kotchie said: “We are still trying to establish what we are entitled to. If they have to split up, it will be like having a limb cut off for them.

“They just won’t survive without each other. I don’t know how mum is expected to get by without dad.

“He is her eyes and she can barely move about at home without feeling her way around the furniture.”

The couple may now be forced to sell their home in order to fund the care they need.

A Southampton University Hospital NHS Trust spokesman said no decision had yet been made and that all options would be looked at in full cooperation with the family.

Pressure has been mounting on the Government to act to stop elderly couples being forced apart in their final years.

In March, Health Secretary Alan Johnson called on councils to build more sheltered accommodation aimed at housing couples rather than individuals.

For a person to qualify for free continuing care they must prove to their health authority that their primary need is a medical one – not a social one.